Food WINS

Today, I finally picked a couple of recipes that worked.  Everything is delicious.

Roasted carrot hummus. Amazing.

Almond butter pumpkin cookies.  Pretty good.  I didn't have enough almond butter so I estimated the rest of the ingredients and I might have estimated wrong....

Pumpkin cinnamon applesauce.  By far, the best thing of the day.  Made with delicious honeycrisp apples.  

And a total FAIL.  I broke my favorite tablespoon.  The other half slid under the refrigerator.  

Right now the delicious smell of cooking apples and cinnamon has been replaced by the slightly grotesque smell of baked salmon as I have been experimenting with Atticus cookies and made him some pumpkin salmon bites.

Now I actually  need to make my FOOD food for the week - teriyaki tempeh and rice, and stop making side dishes and desserts.

We cannot cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy.
~ Joseph Campbell

I haven't talked about food in awhile

Although I haven't talked about it, I've been making it.  Sans photos, mostly, but here's a recent recipe round-up...

Pumpkin Pie Roasted Almonds.  This recipe had an added side affect of making my entire house smell like fall.

Spicy Miso Dipped Tempeh.  I really hate tofu, but I really love tempeh.  I buy the multi-grain version at Trader Joe's.  It's my way of saving a chicken.  Also, I really don't like to handle raw meat.

Raw Peanut  Butter Pie.  Everyone at work who tried it went from skeptical to appreciative.  So apparently it tastes much better than it looks.  

Both Beet Hummus & Black Bean Hummus.  I'm pretty sure I just don't like beets.  Even in hummus.  But it makes a good sandwich filler.

Coconut Tempeh with Mango Honey Dipping Sauce.  Yeah, the recipe calls for chicken but I've already discussed my thoughts on chicken.  Still tastes awesome with tempeh.

And my crowning glory....Stuffed soft pretzels.

I made one batch stuffed with spinach, artichoke, bacon, and cheese, and the second batch stuffed with bacon and cheese.  These were gobbled up by even my most skeptical coworkers, and I brought none home.  A lot of work, but overall not so bad.  

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

~ William Shakespeare

Gourmet

So I tried some new things, courtesy of my farmers market buys...

Fava beans.  HUGE.  

Peeled, blanched, peeled again, then sauteed in garlic.  A lot of work but they were delicious.

The snobbiest pizza ever.  See below...

For the snobbiest pizza ever, I made a sweet potato crust (see recipe here), then topped with fresh mushrooms and spinach that were sauteed in garlic and olive oil, and then a sprinkling of my special farmers market cheese.  It wasn't bad....I didn't have much time to enjoy it as it took longer than I thought to make and after eating a piece I had to get ready for work.  I think it needs something more - not necessarily sauce....just something else....

Three work days down.  Two to go.  3 1/2 weeks til vacation.  I can do it!?!?

Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep.  Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell.  And when you get angry, get good and angry.  Try to be alive.  You will be dead soon enough.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Bread and Butter

This is how I celebrated the holiday...

Homemade honey beer bread (yeah, I used hard cider) and some cinnamon honey butter.  

Oh yeah, and an 8 hour shift.

I was asked tonight how I got my rhubarb butter to taste like a fruit roll-up.  That would be sugar, my friend.

Do you ever wonder how two people asking the same question of the same person get 2 separate answers?  I experienced that tonight.  So either our questions were different, or we interpreted the same answer a different way. One of those great mysteries that I will never solve.  Too bad this one ended in heartache.

It's my weekend.  I have nothing planned, and hope the weather cooperates with those plans.  Another week in which I'm done with people in all ways and means.  Hope to shut off the world for awhile and regroup.

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
~ A. Camus

High hopes

I have high hopes for the rest of June.  The first week was rough - 3 twelve hour shifts in a row this past week, but I got a 3 day weekend to relax, cook, and completely shut myself off from the world.  It's been pretty great.

Here's some things I've been doing...

Campfire last weekend with a friend I haven't seen for months.  It was refreshing.  

The farmers market now has a juice stand.  Wasn't bad....don't think I could drink if every day.  It DOES reaffirm my thoughts that I should start adding mint to everything.  

Spinach balls with pesto sauce.  Absolutely amazing.  I wasn't that impressed with the pesto, but the  spinach  balls were AWESOME.  

Strawberry rhubarb butter.  Work people also thought it was delicious, which is a feat in & of itself.  

Chickpea wraps. I, of course, made with extra pickles.  

One of the best things I've made to date....bacon jam.  I can't even begin to describe it.  It's a lot of work for not a lot of output, but it's still amazing.  

Walk like you have three men walking behind you.

~Oscar de la Renta

Birds, birthdays, mushrooms, and mothers

I went to a 1-year old's birthday party yesterday.  I wanted to skip it, but at the same time, I knew I would get fed really well.  My desire for good food I don't have to make or pay for far outweighed the knowledge that I would spend 2 hours at a place where I only know the person who invited me.

After I got home I was ready to write a 10 page missive about how ridiculous children's birthday parties are, especially when you are one-year-old.  There were 20-ish adults at the party (yup, I counted), which makes about 10 presents.  I wouldn't doubt that every single package for this kid cost at least $30-$50.  Every single person (except me!) bought multi-step presents, and all of them (except mine!) included at least 2 outfits.  Seriously, this child had over 30 new outfits (15 were from her grandmother) by the time she was done "opening" presents (in reality her 3 year old brother opened them while she sat and ate tissue paper).  It was a good example of excess and ridiculousness.  I mean the food was good, but not that good.

I, on the other hand, firmly  believe in making presents.  When the 3 year old opened the present I brought, he was super excited about it and immediately threw it at his 1 year old sister.  AWESOME.

An owl pillow.  Made with materials I had on hand.  Turned out cute, I think.  Cute enough for a 1 year old at least.

And somehow it has turned into my Monday again.  How?  My weekends go by entirely too fast when there's less than 48 hours worth of them.  And again, two 12-hour days to start off my week.

*deep breath*

I made some fancy stuff so far today.  An ice-cream cake (my coworker requested it for her birthday on Thursday) is sitting in the freezer.

Veggie cornbread.  It kind of looks like a fail, but it is actually very very good.  The mushrooms make it, I think.  If you want to see what it's supposed to look like, see this recipe.  

Teriyaki tempeh with mushrooms.  Hard to tell what's going on because I used purple rice, so there's no variety of colors, but it is AMAZING.  If you don't want to use tempeh, just use the recipe for teriyaki sauce.  

I'm trying a blueberry banana smoothie today.  It is made and in the fridge, waiting for me to head off to work.

Earlier today I had to rescue a tiny bird from my sunroom.  Somehow it got in, but couldn't get out as it was confused by all the windows.  It kept flying head-first into them.  Yikes.  It only took 20 minutes to coax it into a box so I could release it outside.  With Atticus whining on the other side of the door the entire time.  Oi.

Happy mothers day to all the mothers out there!

Especially mine!!!

Love you, Mom!

Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children.  
~ Marilyn Penland

Battles

It's been a weird couple of days.  I don't even know how to describe it.  It's like I'm fighting an invisible battle, but I don't know who or what.

I'm almost officially on burnout from work.  I work too much overtime (if these *&^$%@# people would stop calling out sick!), and I have a big project (or 2...or 3...) on my plate.  I saw a picture of me a coworker took of the back of me, which was enough to make me want to stop eating for about a month.  I had a 1 day weekend in which I got nothing done because I literally just didn't want to do anything.  At all.  I accidentally hit a crow with my car yesterday.  It flew into my path, I didn't aim for it at all.

But then there's good things too.  I hate when people say they "had a good workout", because it sounds so dumb.  Really really dumb.  But I know what they mean, and at the risk of sounding really really dumb, I had 2 great workouts yesterday and today.  I left the gym feeling motivated.  My boss bought me a present...incredibly geeky, but incredibly thoughtful.  I've done some creative things that have happened to work out well.  I got my oil changed this afternoon, and they tested out my radiator (I thought it might be leaking), and it wasn't.  Good stuff.  And...after 3 more workdays, I have 5 days off.  I will be volunteering Saturday morning with WalkMS, and then Saturday evening will be flying to see my friend, Ashley, in Utah.

In other news, my new favorite addition to my Hulu queue is Downton Abbey.  Never thought I'd say that.

My new at home radio.  So I can ham it up at home (this was my present).

Seed markers made of twigs and stamped letters.  These were my contribution towards my work's auction basket for the fallen officers fund.

Raw Mint Chocolate Oat bars.  I subbed chocolate mint and omitted the raisins.  You would not believe how yummy these are.  Sadly, it only made 6.  I can't decide whether to hoard them or share them.  I wish all raw recipes were as easy and delicious.   

And as always, my number one guy.  He'll be turning 8 soon.  

You have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
~ Margaret Thatcher

65 extra pounds

This post comes to you from a 1-handed typer as I have an entire load of Atticus laying on my lap and demanding immediate attention.  Makes me wonder what's going through his head.  He totally skipped over running after the tennis ball and went straight for the lap. Hopefully it's cause I spoiled him with attention this past weekend, not something else...

Anyways, here's a pictorial of the latest happenings...

We had a beautiful Easter weekend.  I mowed my backyard on Sunday, took a nap in the sun...

....fired up the backyard firepit...

...and had another small Boggle tournament.  I won.  

My seedlings are growing!

Food roundup....cauliflower fried rice.  No, it doesn't taste EXACTLY like rice as the post says, but it's pretty close.  Pretty delicious.

I want to say these are black bean pumpkin patties, but since I substituted almost everything in the recipe, I can't.  They're more like "another version of a bean burger, this time using pumpkin".  I used white kidney beans instead of black beans, purple rice instead of brown rice, season-all instead of the list of spices, used rolled oats instead of panko, and cut down the scallions to 1 instead of 3.  So, its almost like it's my own recipe....

"Green" themed potluck at work tonight.  Top down:  spinach artichoke dip, zucchini whoopie  pies, and chicken pesto something or other.  Two days worth of calories in one meal, and all of it absolutely yumm-o.  The zucchini whoopie pies were a huge hit, and they are all gone now (luckily - otherwise I would eat the rest).  

I have 2 weeks until I have a 5 day weekend in which I'm going to visit a friend in Utah.  I can't tell you how excited I am.  It can't come soon enough, as I realize I'm nearing the burn-out stage at work.

I love sleep.  My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake.
~ Ernest Hemingway

Food haul

Black Bean Oat burger and Edamame Quinoa

Spinach Chickpea salad (ehh)

Zucchini carrot muffins

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
~ Great Expectations

Here's some pics to tide you over...

I haven't felt much like blogging lately.  I don't take pictures of much.  And if I do, I instagram them, share them on Facebook, and then say, why would I post them to my blog as well???  BORING.  

Anyways, just a couple things.  I've been trying to go out of my comfort zone.  Trying new things.  Its uncomfortable and weird and icky and occasionally cool.  For example, I met an east-coast couple (the dude is from Lancaster, PA!!!) in a coffee shop randomly, and gave them my number.  They live in Seattle, but I hope they call me up one day if they're on this side.  And if they don't?  I'm okay with that.   

My work schedule is ugly.  Everyone who has heard about it who I don't work with asks if my boss hates me.  It's that ugly.  Graveyard last week, two dayshifts and 3 graveyards this week, traveling on both my dayshifts, then next week is dayshift, then swingshift, and then I think I might finally be back on graveyards for awhile.  Either way, my body is rebelling and doesn't know what to do half the time.

Today I cooked some butternut squash.  Fancy like.  Although I didn't completely follow this recipe...  It was okay.  I prefer my squash roasted with salt.

And I made some Date Syrup.  To replace honey or agave.  Haven't used it yet.  Smells sugary.  

I also made some flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.  Just cause they're flourless doesn't make them healthy though.  Using peanut butter as the main ingredient DOES make them delicious.

 I've been trying to go through all my frozen foods and pantry items (i.e. squash out the kazoo!) instead of buying stuff from the grocery store.  Its only half working.  There's only 10-15 ways to make a squash until you get really really really tired of squash.  Or at least the prep work.

I'm hoping tomorrow I can make some vegan-like hamburger barbecue using TVP.  Just gotta go buy some ingredients.

Raked more leaves today.  In the heavy wind.  FAIL.  Can you see Atticus???

Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.

~ Margaret Shepard

This is what happens when I have hours to kill between gym classes...

So, I'm going to bore you to death with details of my shopping expeditions today.  Mainly  because I"m trying to kill time....I need to take a shower because I smell like sweat and grossness, but in my haste to do a quick clean-up when coming home I ran the dishwasher.  Whoops....now I gotta wait for it to run its course so I don't get stuck with a freezing cold shower.

Anyways, I had a couple hours to kill between taking some gym classes today - partially poor planning, partially the fact that if I go home, I can't leave again because Atticus gets mad.  Yes, my dog runs my life.  I know it.

So, Central Market is the local place to buy everything imaginable.  It's a lot of local products, and they cater to every kind of diet out there.  I've been there countless times, I've wandered the aisles in a daze, and each time I go I find new and cool things.  And very expensive things.  Very very expensive things.

Like this chai.  I'm excited to try it.  It's going to be a work treat.

I have searched the entire ethnic section of Central Market several times over, each time unable to locate tahini.  I even googled "where to find tahini at the grocery store", and each time they said the ethnic section.  I finally asked.  It was with the peanut butter.  Yeah, no wonder I never found it, I never actually go to that section.

I bought these for work.  Long story.  Jonathan, hopefully these fit my healthy requirement!

The veganstoner, who has one of my favorite recipe sites, mentions this in a lot of his recipes.  I never knew what it was, and was never interested enough to research it.  Tonight while I was looking over the 30 different kinds of flour, I found it!  Now I'll have to go back and find some recipes that take TVP.  

After Central Market, I had more time to kill, so I headed over to goodwill.  There, among all the plates and cups and saucers, was an entire HUGE set of midnight sun.  After looking them over, I discovered a couple things....#1 - the pricers at goodwill set aside two sets of regular bowls and didn't include them with the other sets.  #2 - the rest of the stonewear was divided into 2 large sets - 24 & 28 pieces.  The 24 piece set was labeled $24.99 for the set.  The 28 piece set had no price.  I had every single piece in both sets, except for set #2, the unpriced one...it had 2 sets of bowls that I didn't have.  I would swear I looked over each piece in that set and couldn't find a price.  So, I asked an employee, who brought over the manager.  I explained I just wanted these two sets of bowls (not the ones that were over in another section), and while I would pay for the whole set, I just really wanted the bowls.  She ended up looking for a price tag as well, and couldn't find one.  So, she sold me the bowl sets for $3.99 each set.....

Wide brimmed very shallow soup bowls (i'm assuming)

I should have taken a pic of these next to something else.  These are big serving size bowls.

looking these up on pfaltzgraff.com, I think the top bowls are "rim soup bowls", and retail for about $9.99 a bowl.  The second set I *THINK* are pasta bowls,which retail for about $11.99 a bowl.

Ironically, when I got home and was loading the bowls into the dishwasher, I found the price tag on the very bottom bowl.  $24.99 for the set.  I don't feel bad.  Not one bit.  I don't need any more large plates, small plates, mugs, regular bowls, etc etc, but I think I want to go back in a few weeks to see if they're still there.

I also got these brand new shiny shoes.  Mom - remember at top drawer I got those blue slip-on shoes and I was telling you about the brand "BC Shoes".  These are also BC shoes!!!

 In other news...

The shirts I made for the 3 year old.  The color is off due to the flash, but I think they're pretty fun.

Received in the mail today.  I'M OFFICIAL!!!

Hoping tomorrow to cook a bunch, including making vegan cream cheese!

Do your little bit of good where you are.  It's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
~ Desmond Tutu

Its a veggie kind of day

After eating about 4 types of meat last night, along with multiple other delicious but fattening snacks, I felt today would be better if it was vegetable oriented.

Roasted red cabbage.  (Yes, there was bacon in there, but just for seasoning)

Cauliflower bread sticks (with some edamame bean dip in the back).

Spinach chips.  I actually made these a couple days ago, but if I had time today I'd make them again.  I tend to eat them too fast though.  I used the idea of this recipe, but just used oil, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast.

Quinoa & White Bean fritters.  My most favorite thing today.  Dipped in some honey mustard dressing.  mmmm....

Hoping to make some butternut squash "steaks" and breakfast cookies before heading to the gym.  Or I might just take a nap.  Last day of my 4 day weekend, and I'm enjoying every second.

I don't hate people, I just feel better when they aren't around.
~ Charles Bukowski